It’s not even August, and the noise is rising.

It happens every time a columnist or coach supports the inevitable and correct Playoff expansion to 8 teams.

The cries come from every corner. They are immediate. They are relentless. And they are so, so far off base.

Every game matters! Expand the Playoff and you’ll ruin the sanctity of the college football regular season!

I admire the passion. I truly do. And I wish every college football game did, in fact, matter.

But I like facts even more. And the facts show beyond a reasonable doubt that every game does not matter. Some matter a whole lot more than others. Others don’t matter at all, including at least one Power 5 championship game every year. And here’s the rub: We never really, truly know which ones voters will deem most worthy.

To wit: Here are 10 such games that clearly did not matter in the Playoff era:

10. 2017: UCF vs. all 12 of its opponents

Let’s just get this out of the way and count it as one. There wasn’t any more UCF could have done. There isn’t anything more any Group of 5 team can do. They beat everybody in front of them. And it did not matter. After beating a ranked team to win the AAC Championship Game, UCF rose two spots to No. 12 in the final College Football Playoff Poll. Nothing it did mattered.

9. 2017: Auburn’s loss at LSU

I said all along that game didn’t matter. From mid-October on, I labeled Auburn a Playoff threat, even with two losses.

Colleagues called me crazy, but Momma didn’t raise an idiot. My argument was simple, correct and based on the fact not every game matters: If they Tigers ran the table, if they beat No. 1 Georgia, No. 1 Alabama and a highly-ranked Georgia team again in the SEC Championship Game, there was no way they were being left out of the Playoff. Those games would matter so much more than the Clemson loss or the LSU loss.

What happened? The 2-loss Tigers roared into the Playoff picture after taking out No. 1 Georgia and No. 1 Alabama. They were No. 2 in the Playoff poll entering the SEC Championship Game. Win that, and they were a lock to become the first 2-loss team to make the Playoff.

8. 2017: Georgia’s loss at Auburn

What was that margin again? Did you say 23 points? They gave up 40, a regular-season high? In November?

Boy, that didn’t seem to matter much.

The Dawgs gained revenge a few weeks later in a game that did matter — The SEC Championship Game — and raced into the Playoff as the No. 3 seed.

7. 2017: Clemson’s loss at Syracuse

Did this even happen? Syracuse, which finished 4-8 and gave up 64 points to Wake Forest, allegedly beat No. 1 Clemson.

I say “allegedly” because it sure didn’t matter.

Just a few weeks later, Clemson was No. 4 in the season’s first Playoff poll.

Credit: Rich Barnes-USA TODAY Sports

All four Playoff teams suffered one loss last season. Clemson was the only one that lost to a team with a losing record. Not that it mattered.

6. 2016: Penn State’s victory over Ohio State

You want to know why this game didn’t matter? Because Penn State’s 31-point loss at Michigan mattered so much more. So even when Ohio State failed to make it to the Big Ten Championship Game, and even after Penn State topped Wisconsin for that title and its ninth consecutive victory, it didn’t matter.

The Buckeyes reached the Playoff. The team that handed them their only regular-season loss stayed home. As if that game never happened.

5. 2016: Washington’s home loss to USC

Washington was 9-0, ranked No. 4 in the Playoff poll and playing at home against a USC team that started 1-3.

That first loss, you might remember: a 52-6 beatdown at the hands of Alabama, the game that marked the beginning of the Jalen Hurts Era.

The Trojans recovered after the rough start, but beating Washington by 13 was the high point of the regular season.

The loss didn’t exactly doom Washington, did it? The Huskies dropped to No. 6, but they were fine because two of the teams ahead of them still had to play each other.

4. 2016: Michigan’s loss to Iowa

Iowa entered that game with four losses. Michigan already had mauled nine opponents, topping 50 points four times. Iowa held unbeaten Michigan to 13 points in a 14-13 upset.

It didn’t matter. The Wolverines stayed at No. 3 in the following Sunday’s Playoff poll. That was the same week that Washington lost to USC, which was ranked No. 20. The Huskies fell in the Playoff poll. The Wolverines didn’t. Why did the UW-USC game mean more than the Michigan-Iowa game? Now you’re beginning to see my frustration with this whole “every game matters” nonsense.

A couple of weeks later Michigan played a game that did matter. It lost to Ohio State on a disputed fourth-down call in double overtime that led to the winning touchdown.

2015: Michigan State’s loss to Nebraska

A few years before Scott Frost decided to return to Lincoln to save the world, Nebraska was in the midst of a rare losing season.

The highlight of Mike Riley’s short stint was a 1-point stunner against No. 7 and unranked Michigan State.

That loss dropped Michigan State to No. 13 in the Playoff poll, but clearly it didn’t matter nearly as much as what happened after that. A 3-point victory two weeks later meant a whole lot more — the Spartans jumped four spots, staying ahead of a Baylor team that beat No. 6 Oklahoma State on the road by 10 that same weekend.

2. 2014: Oregon’s home loss to Arizona

Arizona was a solid team, good enough to win 10 games and earn the right to play Oregon again in the Pac-12 championship.

The Ducks demolished the Wildcats in Round 2, wiping out any lingering memories of their early-season 7-point home loss.

Oregon started at No. 5 in the the first Playoff poll — one spot ahead of Alabama, which lost a road game by 6 points.

So, Oregon host at home to an unranked team. Alabama lost on the road against a ranked team and later beat a ranked team 59-0. And Oregon started ahead of Alabama. Got it.

1. 2014: Ohio State’s 14-point home loss to Virginia Tech

This is the one where I lost all faith and stopped believing in the “every game matters” mantra.

If every game truly mattered, there was no way the Buckeyes could overcome a 14-point home loss against a team that finished with a losing record in the ACC.

Compare that with TCU, the team that got hosed in the final Playoff poll, falling three spots from No. 3 to No. 6 a day after winning a conference game by 52 points.

It never made sense. It still doesn’t. (You say, “But Ohio State won it all!” And I say, “Yes, which is exactly why we need 8 teams in the Playoff. Because there are more than 4 every year that are capable.”)

TCU was 11-1 that regular season. It beat four teams ranked in the Top 20 at the time of kickoff. It won eight games by 20 or more. But the only game TCU played that mattered was the one it lost — by 3 points, on the road, against a No. 5 Baylor team.

That was the day the Playoff committee lost me. The day I realized that the only games that matter are the ones they decide matter — and good luck trying to figure out their changing criteria.

College football is awesome. Every game might be important. Every game might be entertaining. But please stop trying to tell me that every game matters.